


Beware of women with beards and men without

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: ...the other half is reprehensible sex, Azaghâl Is Definitely Not A Dirty Elf Fetishist Nope, Beards, Cultural Differences, Dwarves, Elves, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, Maedhros is a slut for military resources, half of this is intelligent people respectfully discussing cultural gender markers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:04:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9441707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: The wise rulers of two noble peoples come together.Andmake common council.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LiveOakWithMoss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Бойтесь бородатых женщин и безбородых мужчин](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506908) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)



> The title is a Basque proverb and good advice to boot.
> 
> First posted on [my tumblr](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com)!

Azaghâl knew, objectively, that the elf was a woman and not a girl but the bare face made that hard to keep in mind. Tall or not, she should be sweeping up the ash in her parents’ forge, not leading war parties of children just as young.

“I’m older than your great grandfather,” said the elf when, after a few drinks, Azaghâl put this to her. “Older than that, even, but you can only say ‘great’ so many times before it becomes tedious.”

“Older in years, maybe,” said Azaghâl, because it sounded very wise. “But what do years mean to you? Ten centuries, a hundred, and you won’t have aged. You’ll still be the same overgrown children.”

“Very philosophical.” There was the proper amount of respect in those words but she spoilt it all by adding, “I can see you staring at my chin.”

“It’s obscene. My daughter has more stubble than you and she’s not yet learnt to walk. How can anyone know your rank? Your clan?”

“You know because I introduced myself as Lord of the House of Fëanor,” said the elf, a little peevishly. She was not long irked, though. “How would a beard tell you those things? Do the braids have meanings? The beads?”

“Yes and yes. Each clan has their own braid, see?” She tugged at the interlocking ladder of plaits that fell from her chin down to her belt. “And beads are given when they’re earnt. By masters when an apprenticeship is completed, by commanders for a battle well fought, by lovers for- well.” Azaghâl was king for a reason and fair jangled when she walked, so heavy was her beard with metal, shining like veins of precious ore against her coal dark hair. “How can anyone respect you or trust you if they can’t see the record of your deeds?”

The elf laughed as though Azaghâl had said something very funny. “Does saving your life not suffice as an introduction?”

“It was a lovely battle, well planned and well fought. I’d weave one of these-”, she tapped the golden marker of a victory, “-into your hair if you had any. Did the Enemy take it along with your hand?”

“That’s a conversation I’m not drunk enough to have,” said the elf and changed the subject. “What of dwarves that can’t grow beards?”

Azaghâl debated between getting the elf drunker and keeping the mead for herself. Curiosity won out and she tossed the flask in a high arc that sent it sailing over their campfire. “I’ve never known it to be a problem - what great deeds can a babe in arms achieve?”

The elf snatched the bottle from the air one- handed, but did not drink. “And do your women have no great deeds to adorn themselves with?”

“Are you mocking me, girl?” Metal chimed angrily as Azaghâl stood. The light of the campfire dripped and ran across gemstones and worked gold so that it seemed that she was garbed in flame. “Just because those orcs caught me off guard, do you think I’m not your match? Take up your sword and I’ll show you what a dwarven woman can do.”

Despite the twitch, swiftly arrested, towards the knife at her belt, the elf made no attempt to rise. Her expression shifted into something conciliatory and her voice went soft. “My apologies, I intended no offence. No woman of my people has ever grown a beard. To the best of my knowledge, anyway - I have cousins that might do so out of spite now that I’ve said it. Certainly no elf, man or woman, has a beard so fine as yours.”

“That’s not much of a compliment,” Azaghâl said, barely mollified.

“Would you believe I’m the diplomat of the family?” The elf tossed the flask back to her, which did a good deal more to settle her mood.

“Easily,” she said, plopping back down onto a cushion. “But only because I’ve met your sister.”

“How do dwarves tell men from women?” the elf said abruptly. She leant forwards, tilting her head so that the dark stones set in her circlet caught the firelight. “It can’t be braids- Is it the jewels you wear?”

“A fair guess,” Azaghâl said, something itching at the back of her mind. “I don’t know how you Children do it - nothing but hurt to be had in making assumptions about these things.”

“That’s logical,” said the elf, her hand twitched again, not for the knife but a scroll sticking from the pack beside her. A quick kick to the fire dislodged a stick of charcoal and she took it up to write. “As long as all know the system. I assume it’s rubies for a girl?”

“Not just rubies. Any red sto- _hmph_.” Too used to being among civilised folk, she thought, glaring at the blood-dark gems upon the elf’s brow. “You might have said something sooner. Is it ‘boy’ then?”

“Hardly.” There was charcoal smudged across the elf’s cheek when he looked up at her, eyes narrowing in feigned ire. “I’m still older than your great grandmother.”

“Still an idiot.” With her new knowledge, Azaghâl reevaluated him. Too delicate and too sharp for her tastes, even were there not that off putting hairlessness. She took a long pull of the mead and felt its fiery sweetness burn its way down her throat into her belly. It must have been the drink that made her say what she said next. “Hey now. If your folk can’t grow beards, what about the rest, eh?” **  
**

“I’ve seen some of your folk wearing jade and malachite,” said the elf, still taking notes. “What does that- eh?” he echoed.

“Are you hairless all over?” Azaghâl rose from her squat and sidled around the fire.

He looked up at her from beneath dark lashes - it was the first time she had stood tall enough above him to make him do so and she rather liked the effect. “Is that academic curiosity or are you propositioning me?”

“Just get your cock out,” she said, dropping into his lap. “Is that a dagger in your pocket or- oh, I see it is.”

“That too,” He shifted so that she could sit more comfortably astride his thighs. “And that. It would be quicker if I told you what was not a- _ah_. Yes.”

Though she did not consider herself much of a scholar, Azaghâl had ever been one to let her curiosity guide her, and so it was that she slid her hand into his breeches and fisted his cock. It was longer than one of her own people’s, even unaroused, though not so thick about. She was almost disappointed to find he did have hair about the base of it, dark red and thick.

“Now this I could braid,” she said, stroking the curls, marvelling a little at the softness.

“That seems a waste of nimble fingers.” His own hands were at her belt, the real one and the false, not nimble but more adroit than she’d expected.

She pulled her tunic over her head and cast it aside into the shadows beyond their fire, and freed her breasts from their bindings. Her nipples were already peaked and, while she told herself it was the chill of the night air and the scrape of her beard, she could feel herself beginning to grow wet. It was ridiculous; this was a challenge, a way to sate her curiosity and soothe her injured pride over the rescue, not a tumble with some handsome, lusty lad who’d give as good as he got.

As far as elves went, she supposed she’d chosen well. He was as strange as any of them but the crooked nose and notched ears, the blotchy scar tissue on his left cheek did much to break the eerie, perfect symmetry that made them so off-putting.

Sliding his fingers through her beard, he cupped her right breast, thumb brushing over the nipple and then dipped his head to tongue the other. It was an awkward angle given the disparity in their heights, but that did not stop her from seizing his head and pressing it down for more contact. His teeth closed on the steel bar that pierced the nipple and he tugged, gently. Pleasure flared like bright sparks struck from worked steel, and she sighed.

His other hand, the one that was not upon her breast, he kept beside him, where it could not touch her. That she would not stand for and she caught his right wrist and drew it up. “It’s cold,” he said.

“It’s lovely.” She might have no honest praise to give an elf’s looks, but she could appreciate good metalwork. It resembled a plate gauntlet more than a hand, jointed at the fingers which opened and closed through some mechanism that she could not see. She brought it to her breast, shivering at the touch - he had not lied - and felt the fingers twitch against her skin.

There was not enough movement in it to caress her as his left hand did, but she enjoyed the touch of it all the same, moreso when he put his mouth to use again, warm tongue contrasting with chill metal. Her own hands went to work, one hand upon his cock, coaxing it to hardness while the other she slipped between her own legs.

The elf sat back and shook his head, working the stiffness from his neck. “If you don’t mind lying down-”

“No need, I’m just about ready.”

“There’s oil in my pack.” He leant away from her to reach it, as much as he could with her weight upon him, but she drew him back.

“I’m sopping, lad.”

“Convenient,” he observed, letting her guide his hand down. His fingers brushed her clit, so lightly it might have been an accident, and then more surely.

There was a frown upon his face, not the look of a man taking pleasure in a lover but of one who has been set a difficult challenge and intends to excel at it. She gave his cock a tug. “Not been with many women, eh?”

“Not many, no.”

“Slowly.” She rocked against his hand and he took the hint, letting his thumb press against her clit and the bar that pierced it, while two fingers slipped inside. “That’s good.” And it was. In her hand, his cock was heavy, smooth and slick with precome, and she realised, with annoyance, that it was more than curiosity that drove her.

“Stop fumbling,” she snapped. He raised an eyebrow at her - inexperienced or not, he had clever fingers and a ready aptitude, and they both knew he’d not faltered. His expression - bright eyes gone very dark, lips drawn back just enough to show a glint of teeth - was-

Was as alien as the rest of him.

 _Oh well_ , she thought. Her beard was not heavy with half her weight in gold because she feared to try new things. In one easy movement, she raised herself up onto her knees and then slid down, onto his cock. There was a gratifying gasp and the click of teeth snapping closed not an inch from her bare shoulder. “Bite all you want,” she told him, struggling to maintain her air of kingly condescension despite the warmth of his body against hers, the sweet ache of his cock. “I don’t mind.”

He didn’t though. A moment’s stillness in which neither of them moved and then they both tried to at once, nearly spilling her from his lap. Leaning back, braced upon his elbows, he looked up at her and suddenly neither of them could keep from laughing.

“Why did we think this was a good idea?” she said, righting herself with a chime like bells.

The elf sat up and set his face into a look of consternation. “Do you not find me fair?”

“I find you strategically valuable.” She did not kiss him but she raised her head to lick at the sweat beading at his throat, delighting in the smoothness of his skin against her stubbly cheek. These Western elves weren’t so pale as the Avari she was used to, but the scrape of her beard brought a dark flush to his skin all the same. He tasted wrong though, not of sweet mead and sweat but metal, fresh-quenched and forge-sharp.

The breathless sound he made was not a laugh. “My lady is too kind.” His false hand went to her hip, cold but not cold enough to put her off, while his left dropped down to stroke her clit again.

“You have not been free with your compliments, Elf,” she said, thumbing the smudge of charcoal from his cheek. And then she set her feet, rose up and plunged down again.

A lifetime of battles fought in heavy armour had given her thighs the envy of all Tumunzahar, and she was rather impressed when he thrust up to match her pace. “I shall write a treatise on your charms, as it please you,” he said. Panted, really, for she knew what she was about.

“How will you do that when you’ve stopped taking notes?” Reaching up, she pinched his ear to chide him. Gently at first but when he shuddered, bucked, and sank his teeth into her shoulder, she could not help but do it harder. His left hand was tangled in her beard again, tugging with a force just short of pain and she grunted in pleasure.

It might have lasted longer - Azaghâl did pride herself upon her stamina - but this would not have happened at all had they been sober and the mead did them no favours. She tried, one last time, to picture a dwarf man with thick limbs and a thicker beard but, as those first tumbling pebbles became a landslide that swept her mind blank, it was sharp features and those ridiculous, pointed ears that filled her thoughts.

Beneath her, she felt his body tremble, muscles locking, and she would have ridden it out, tried to eke out more pleasure for herself but a realisation, one she really should have had sooner, dawned, and she slid from his lap with a curse.

He opened his mouth, perhaps to ask a question or object, and then swore himself and closed his hand about his cock to finish for himself. The nearness of his climax had robbed him of that uncanny grace and his movements were rough and inelegant as he brought himself off and spent upon the dirt.

“I’m sorry,” she said, when his breathing had calmed and he was looking at her again with cool, unclouded eyes. “That was churlish but, whatever I owe you, I don’t want our houses joined by blood.”

“What do- oh.” All offence forgotten, he drew his breeches back up and went looking for his parchment. “Are you saying you could have conceived from only that?”

Azaghâl hitched up her breeches and accepted her discarded shirt from him with a grunt. “Well I’ve never heard of a dwelf, but is it worth the risk? Just think what that would look like.”

“Don’t talk about our child like that.” He said it very solemnly but she had learnt to read him well enough to catch the joke.

“My beard and your ears? The fairest of both our kindreds, I’m sure.” The fire had died down and Azaghâl stoked it back into a blaze. “That was rude of me, though. I’ll find some way to make it up.”

“A squad of your infantry stationed at Maglor’s Gap? You give us the sixty parts we’ve been asking on the trade agreement with Gabilgathol?”

Azaghâl patted his head - while he sat they were of equal height and she intended to make the most of it. “I was thinking more along the lines of sucking you off, but I’m sure we can work something out.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zedille, on the last chapter: [Now my "academic curiosity" wants to see Azaghal's pov of seeing Maedhros naked. The snark! The cultural differences! Call it an anatomy class ;D](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9441707/comments/93850454)
> 
> Here you go, bud!

“- concluded that he is not unassailable,” the boy was saying. “Yet he will destroy us all, one by one, if we cannot again unite and make new league and common council.”

The words were probably important - it was a long journey he’d made for her to hear them - but Azaghâl found herself more interested in the movement of his lips. There was a scar running from the corner of his mouth almost to his ear, too neat to be well won. It looked as though someone had slid a knife between his teeth and drawn it out the hard way, and she was intrigued by the pull and twist of it as he spoke. That, she told herself, was the only reason she could not look away.

“Yes,” she agreed, mostly to keep him going. Last time they’d met, he’d been dressed for war and she thought the mail and leather had suited him rather better than the samite robe that he wore now. _That_ unnecessary garment, that concealed his body far more completely than a hauberk, was fit for little more than lying crumpled and discarded upon her chamber floor.

So productive was this line of sartorial speculation, it took her long moments to realise he had stopped talking and was staring at her expectantly. As was the rest of her court.

“Leave us,” she said gruffly. “I shall discuss this matter with the Elf Lord in private.”

There was some grumbling as her people exited the throne room and much exchanging of disapproving looks. Gladly they might trade the products of the labours of their hands but any closer union with the Eldar was regarded with suspicion.

“It’ll take more than pretty words,” Azaghâl said so that they might hear before the carven doors swung closed behind them. Despite their great weight, they moved easily and silently upon their hinges and the elf turned his head to watch them until they had been sealed.

“Some system of counterweights?” he asked and then, when she did not answer, “No matter. Since the Dagor Bragollach, the Enemy’s power has only grown - you’ve experienced that for yourself. What I offer is-”

“Save your breath,” she said, waving him silent. The steel studs in her boots rang cold and hard against the granite as she descended from the dais that held her throne. Rather than let him tower over her, she halted some feet away and glowered until he got the message. Even ignoring the smirking twist the scar lent his mouth, Azaghâl suspected the Elf of smugness as his hand went to the collar of the robe that she so hated. “You can wipe that look off your face,” she said. “I want to know who - and what - I’ll be joining myself to, is all.”

“Shall we call this an anatomy lesson, then?” The robe slid open to bare his shoulders and then with a shrug it was gone, pooling upon the cold stone about his feet.

He wore nothing beneath.

The great hall was lined with statues of her forebears, adorned with gilt, lapis, nacre traded from the Sindar, carved with such loving detail they looked ready to leap down from their plinths. Azaghâl kept her own face as still as any one of theirs and did _not_ think sentimentally of burnished copper or the polished sheen of tiger’s eye. Skin was skin and not since Mahal had first brought them from the stone had any great craftsmanship gone into its forming.

There had been _a_ will at work though, she noted, stepping closer. A king of the Khazad could not but admire craft in all its forms, and if the knotted lash marks that snarled from his shoulders to his thighs lacked artistry, there was other, finer work. Hair-thin lines followed the dip and contour of muscles like seams upon a figure cast from bronze. Even the scar that twisted his lip had been cleanly made and neatly stitched.

“You’re not the first to take an interest in Eldar anatomy, of course,” the elf said amiably, looking down at her over his shoulder. “Though I hope you’ll be less literal. I’d say more hands-off but, well…” He gestured helpfully.

“I suppose your own people find you funny.” Azaghâl let one of her own hands rest upon his hip, rubbing her thumb along one of those delicate scars, calluses scraping over the skin.

“Humour _is_ hard to translate,” he said not entirely suppressing a shiver. “My cousin is writing a paper on Atani jokes, looking for common factors. It’s the dullest thing I’ve ever rea- _ah_.” He cut himself off with a yelp for she’d sunk her teeth into the curve of his buttock.

“No whining. I can see you’re tougher than that.”

“What I am is ticklish,” he said with wounded dignity and Azaghâl snorted, slapped his rump and circled around to stand before him.

While she did not appreciate being looked down upon, Azaghâl had to admit that the difference in their heights did make one thing very convenient. And she had made him a promise after all. Beneath the empty stares of her ancestors, Azaghâl pressed her face between the elf’s thighs to tongue his cock.

It was a delicate matter - no self-respecting dwarf, never mind a king would let drool or other fluids marr her beard - but Azaghâl could turn her tongue to this as slickly as she turned it to negotiating trade and mining concessions. Slickly enough that he brought his hands up from their carefully neutral position at his sides to tangle in her hair, the metal of the right chiming brightly against the golden beads in her dark braids.

He spread his legs a little but she gripping his hips to hold him in place and pressed her bristly cheek against the thin skin of his thigh. The elf gasped gratifyingly and clutched tighter at her hair which dissuaded her not at all. She still remembered how nicely the scratch of her beard brought colour to his skin.

The taste of him was much as she remembered too. Not unpleasant but strange enough she could not lose herself in the act, or forget what manner of creature she stood before; dwarves were salt and clean earth, not ash and metal. A dwarf, too, would be well furred, sleek and solid with fat and muscle, but under her fingers, beneath thin skin and sinew, she could feel the sculpted curves of bone. Not to mention, she thought somewhat annoyed, any self-respecting dwarf would be full hard at just the _thought_ of mighty Azaghâl stooping - or indeed standing at her full height - to pleasure them.

Perhaps a little vengefully, she let go his hip to curl a hand about his shaft, flattening her tongue against the head. It wasn’t strictly an anatomical difference but, from the way he twitched and cursed, she guessed not many elves had studs put through their tongues.

Azaghâl leant back to offer him her wickedest grin and then did it again.

“I did mean to ask after the cultural significance last time,” he said, more than a little breathless, and she was pleased to find him properly interested at last.

“I just like them. Same as you, eh? Maybe we should get you some.”

With his right hand, the elf traced the curve of her ear, steel fingers chiming gently against the studs and hoops and cuffs. It was her turn to shiver. “I’ve been pierced enough, I think.”

“Speaking of cultural significance-”

He groaned. “ _Must_ we?”

“You brought it up.” But because she was become sentimental in her old age, Azaghâl took pity and worked the hand about his cock a little, to offer some relief.

“My mouth wasn’t occupied.” But resignedly he brushed her hand away and dropped to his knees so that they might speak face to face. “What was it?”

“Are we wed now?”

“ _What_?”

“I’ve been doing some reading. Didn’t want to get duped into this leaguer of yours.” She had been peeved when first she read that rambling book, but _she_ felt no different and if the elf had bound himself to her then it served him right. “‘It was the act of bodily union-’”

She was interrupted by his laugh. “I think the dwelf was a more serious concern,” he said. “It’s more than the act; there are invocations to the Valar and to Eru. Believe me when I say I’m very careful with the vows I have them witness.”

“Good, then. I have more use for an ally than a husband.” A warm lover was one thing, but husbands were tiresome even when they did not have pointed ears and fearful Dooms.

“War makes for strange bedfellows,” said the elf with a smile that was far too sharp to be charming. She grinned back anyway.

They’d not kissed before; it felt far closer to intimacy than having his cock in her. Azaghâl was no craven though, and his mouth did crook endearingly when he smirked like that.

Kissing him was sweet in a way that none of the rest of it had been. No surprise that he was slick with his tongue, or that his lips were soft against hers. No surprise and no disappointment that he nipped at her lower lip with sharp teeth or that, when she caught his hips to pull him tight against her, he made a breathless noise that was half a moan and half a snarl.

With her right hand, she stroked his cock while her left came up to cup his balls, eliciting another of those lovely growls, like the thrum of fire beneath the earth. He had her trousers open by then, one hand sliding inside, but she caught his wrist. “Use the other one,” she said, because she wanted the steel and wanted the fey look upon his face even more. The elf’s body shone in the torchlight as though burnished and she did not think ‘too long,’ or ‘too sharp,’ or ‘too beardless.’ In that moment she thought only ‘fair.’

And then thought _‘Mahal_ ,’ as steel fingers pressed inside her. As cold as she remembered and unyielding, but the stretch of it was just what she wanted, the thumb pressing against her clit. She let her head fall forwards to rest against his bare chest as she rocked, heat pooling in her loins despite the chill of the metal.

“King Azaghâl,” he murmured, and when she looked up he was not smirking. “You’re very beautiful.”

“And you have no shame at all,” she said, kissing him again to take the sting out of the words. “Don’t think I didn’t see what you were about. Are you planning to seduce all of Beleriand to your cause?”

“I work with what tools I have to hand. So to speak,” he said, twisting his wrist a little to give her a better angle. “What say you?”

Azaghâl offered him no answer but her moans, rocking harder against his hand. He bowed his head to her and any words they might have spoken were lost in the hot press of mouths. His cock was hard in her hand, flushed with need and slick with her spit. A pretty thing - she’d seen sculptures less finely wrought - and she worked it harder, pressed her thumb to the slit. When he came, she felt him gasp against her mouth and held him there until he was spent and slumped against her.

Bracketed by inconveniently long legs, with his fingers still tangled in her hair, Azaghâl took her time working to her own climax. Her people prized the pearls of the Sindar dearly but the sight of those pale, shining beads upon brown thighs was almost as fine and it was to that view that she found her own release.

“I’d rather die quick and glorious than slow as He would have it,” she said when she had her breath back. “I speak for all my folk in that.”

Maethros ran his hand through her beard rolling the beads between his fingers. Gold and garnets flared like forge-sparks. “Did I go to all the trouble of seducing you for nothing?” She gave his softening cock a gentle squeeze and he winced theatrically. “Ah, very well. Not nothing.”

“While you’re here, we have a lovely new seam of mithril just opened up. With war brewing, I imagine you’ll be wanting some.”

“Perhaps,” he said coyly. The metal of his other hand shone slickly in the torchlight as he brought it to his lips. “What would you ask in exchange?”

“If it’s to be war, we’ll be needing supplies. Grain from the East and Hithlum linen.” She winked and wiped her own hands clean upon the pooled red samite upon the floor. “I’ll give you a few minutes to recover before we discuss terms.”


End file.
